Write From the Heart: Romance Author Lynn Hubbard: Is there Good in Evil? Interview with Athanasios creator of Mad Gods

Blog talk radio interview

Note: I was going to call this post "Good Versus Evil" but talking with Athanasios changed my mind. Life is not as simple as that. There is good and evil in everyone; it's a constant battle which roars on in Mad Gods.

Athanasios, welcome to my humble abode!

As you may (or may not) know, I am a visual person. I love art, design, and your book covers. What do you try to capture in your covers and how long does it take for you to create them?

It varies with each cover and who I'm making it for. They can take between a few minutes to a few hours and sometimes days. I'm not necessarily consciously working on it but I'm thinking on it. I'm a firm believer that no matter how hard you try to do something if it's not coming it won't unless you leave it alone to let your own subconscious, luck, providence or whatever you want to call it, help. I try to capture what the author intends to portray, sometimes it's enticing a reader to look further than the cover others it's being literal with what the story contained therein conveys. I know in my own covers I first tried to be literal and then saw they weren't doing much for sales so I just switched to being enticing and moody and it's worked better.

Your books give a new twist to darkness. Reminds me a bit of Pandora’s box. Lots of bad stuff going on but there is still hope.Tell us about them.

The darkness I'm taking from your question is evil? It's great that you brought up Pandora's box, the myth I mean, not some bad 1980s Ron Jeremy or Vanessa Del Rio porn. I've researched, not for the writing but because it's interested me, religion and why we must look outside ourselves for justification of our motivations and life's trials. In that research I discovered many other people's works, notable and varied intellects from Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Campbell to Bill Hicks and many of them have a pliant view of darkness. I've come to agree with this view that there isn't any total darkness there's always degrees. Not the trite shades of grays that many use to describe despicable behavior but the darkness or evil within everyone they must accept in themselves. I try to portray EVERYBODY in Predatory Ethics from Mad Gods to Commitment and the forthcoming In Whom To Trust as multidimensional. I want to have GOOD, SYMPATHETIC and BELIEVABLE reasons for what they all do. I think I've even given Satan a reason for becoming the embodiment of evil and a bitter, rejected, fallen angel. Yet I also scuff up and bloody most of the good guys too. Most are portrayed as stiff and humorless to the point of being without compassion or empathy for anybody or anything save their view of good and evil.

Adam, the main character is the Antichrist: introduced through a codex about his past lives. It describes his unwillingness to enslave the world and fulfill the destiny. Satan, his biblical father, still wants to go through with Revelation and Kosta, his adopted father, wants to give him the freedom to chose. Kosta could've just killed him as an infant, or raise him in ignorance of who he really was but wanted to Adam to know everything and make the choice with nothing hidden. He saw what he was doing as the real Revelation and also chose to let Adam see what a life filled with simple pleasures and pursuits could be.

What inspires you to write?

I want to see where I'll take the story, something I don't know myself until I start to write. Do you want to call that inspiration, then so be it. I do have an idea of the direction but I don't reach it until I start on it's path. Sounds like artsy-fartsy bullshit I know, but it's true in its sincerity. I'll go further down the artsy-fartsy, metaphysical, starry-eyed, hippie, tree-hugging road: I liken it to an old pagan belief of paradise, the Elysian Fields where you went and did whatever you enjoyed when you lived. They didn't believe paradise as the modern Christians do, there was no specific direction that everyone shared and nobody was any different, like walking around clouds and doing ABSOLUTELY nothing. My inspiration is the Elysian Fields, where I stand without knowing where I'll go but just walking in my feet & imagination go wherever they will. Then sometimes I go and have a great meal or drink and feel content.

I know you have been writing over ten years. With age comes wisdom. What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

I wish I knew about indie publishing then. It's been around since that time so I wish I was one of the pioneers. That means I wouldn't still be looking with dread at the fact that it's Sunday tomorrow and then the next day I'd have to wake up extra early to write, before going to work. At least I've got a job that pays the bills, so I'm lucky enough in that respect.